Archive for the ‘mike fiers’ tag

Verlander makes his 11th career opening day start, tying him for the active lead. Photo via sporting News.

Every year I update this long-running XLS for this increasingly anachronistic relic of tracking Opening Day Starter honors for teams. But it does make for some good trivia questions.

After this year’s opening day (including the two-day series in Japan), here’s some interesting stats related to Opening Day Starts from around the league:

Most Opening Day Starts, Active Leaders:

Justin Verlander makes his 11th and he seems well suited to increase that total given current form and new contract.

11 ties him with both CC Sabathia and Felix Hernandez for the most active, neither of whom seem like they’ll get another shot to extend their totals.

Next closest are three tied with 8 each: Jon Lester, Clayton Kershaw and James Shields. Lester’s is active, Kershaw’s should continue, while Shields remains unsigned for 2019 and seems unlikely to get another shot.

Current Leading Consecutive streak:

Julio Teheran with 6, which is pretty amazing because there was talk of him not even making the team with all the pitching depth Atlanta has.

Next closest is Corey Kluber with 5.

Nobody else really is close. Lester has 3 straight for the Cubs, to add to his total of 8 between Boston and Chicago.

Consecutive streaks ended in 2019:

Felix Hernandez has his streak of 10 starts broken, and he wasn’t happy about it.

Kershaw had his streak of 8 broken thanks to the spring training injury.

Chris Archer has his streak of 4 broken thanks to a mid-season 2018 trade.

I’d say half of these are rewards for excellent 2018 seasons (deGrom, Taillon, Mikolas, Freelan, Snell for sure, perhaps also Berrios), some are covering for obvious candidates who are injured (Ryu), while the rest mostly play for tanking teams who have little better choice than to name a starter for opening day (Castillo, Lauer, Rodon, Keller, Fiers, Gonzales and Minor).

This is the highest number of first-time opening day starters in my decade of tracking this.

Historically, here’s the all-time record holders:

Most Ever Opening day Starts: Tom Seaver with 16. Tied for 2nd place with 14 is Jack Morris, Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton

Most Consecutive Opening Day Starts: Jack Morris, all of whom’s 14 opening day starts were in a row.

Well, now we can have the argument; was the Tanner Roark salary dump worth it? Because just a few days later the team signed his replacement; Anibal Sanchez last night to a deal to be his replacement. Contract details are a bit complicated by the reports i’ve seen: 2 guaranteed years, $19M of guaranteed money, with $6M deferred and a 2021 option worth $12M, and some unspecified details that could add $4M to the package.

From what I can tell, the luxury tax implications are just the guarantees; $19M over two years means $9.5M of a luxury tax hit this season … which is almost identical to the $9.8M we’d been using to project Roark.

So, is the team better off? Probably. Roark has had flashes of brilliance (2014 and 2016) … but his last two years he was losing velocity and had plateaued as a slightly below league average pitcher. Despite being much younger, we all kind of saw where he seems to be going, and the team clearly didn’t think his potential performance was worth the money.

Sanchez was a solid, familiar opponent in our division for years, always a solid competitor, an under the radar solid rotation piece. He was god-awful in the AL, then suddenly found a new pitch and a new approach upon returning to the NL and pitched like a #2 starter most of last season.

So the Nats are betting on his 35-year old resurgence continuing, and paying him for it.

Implications for the team:

40-man: this is the 40th guy on the 40 man; the next move requires us to cut loose someone.

Salary Cap: We’re basically treading water from where we were a week ago; i’ve got the team at $188.8M in luxury tax dollars for fy2019, versus a cap of $206M, still leaving $17.6M of room. I’ve seen other reports saying the Nats are now above $200M for the year and I don’t really see how people are arriving at that conclusion:

$134M for 12 signed players for 2019

$32.75M estimate for 6 arb eligible players

$4.6M for the other 7 pre-arb players that will make up the rest of the 25-man roster

$2.25M for the other 15 guys on the 40-man in the minors

$14.5M for benefits

That totals $188.8M, leaving the $17.6M of room. I know some people want to use “real” dollars instead of lux tax dollars, but the difference really isn’t that much.

Rotation: obviously this bumps Erick Fedde to AAA, where he probably should be. This makes for a pretty solid rotation improvement over where we were yesterday. I’m not sure where this places the Nats rotation in the pantheon of the league right now; i have a worksheet that I’ll turn into a blog post that ranks them 1-30 once the remaining impact starters sign (Dallas Keuchel, Yusei Kikuchi, Wade Miley, Gio Gonzalez, Drew Pomeranz, Mike Fiers, etc). But I think there’s a clear top 5 of rotations in the league in some order: Chicago Cubs, Boston, Washington, Cleveland and the Dodgers. Right now i’ve got them roughly ranked in that order. This move bumped up the Nats a couple of slots by replacing a sub-#5 starter in Fedde with at least a #3 quality guy.

Verdict; I think they did pretty darn good considering what’s out there and what they have to work with. I’ll take Sanchez and his 2018 performance as my 4th starter any day. The question is … is it sustainable? Is it a one-off? Scouting reports seem to indicate he found a new pitch and worked it heavily, but that his numbers had some luck involved w/r/t BABIP and soft contact. He’s also 35, so we’re counting on an older guy to continue a sustained late-career surge. Kinda like what the Dodgers have done with Rich Hill, so it isn’t out of the realm of possible.

NY Mets: Only the Mets so far have announced their rotation order. Matt Harvey has quelled shut-down-gate talks by finishing out the season and saying he’d take the ball in the NLDS: hard to see him getting beat in his home game 3 start against the Dodgers, especially given his last outing (6ip, 11Ks). deGrom struggled somewhat down the stretch and Snydergaard is only 22; hard to see them beating the seasoned vets Kershaw/Greinke at home. We still don’t know if Matz is going to be healthy for game 4, but the potential LA opponent isn’t exactly scaring anyone, so I could see this go to a game 5 back in LA with Kershaw getting a 2nd divisional start.

LA: We say this every year: Kershaw is the greatest … and he has a 5+ post-season ERA. I’ll never bet against him in the playoffs, especially not after the September he had. Greinke either wins the Cy Young or finishes a close second, and Wood is an effective 3rd starter. This is a tough rotation to handle. But they’re going against probably the 2nd best rotation in the post-season, meaning this could be a tight 5-game set. Or not; watch every game will be 8-7.

StL: They don’t look tough … but this rotation led the Cardinals to a 100 win season in a division with two other 97+ game winners. That’s pretty amazing. Bet against them at your own peril. They were 11-8 versus the Cubs, 10-9 (and got outscored) against the Pirates, so I’m guessing they’re rooting for a Pittsburgh win in the WC play-in game.

NL Wild Card

Chicago Cubs: Arrieta, Hendricks, Haren, Lester (Hammel)

Pittsburgh Pirates: Cole, Liriano, Happ, Burnett (Morton)

Discussion/Prediction: Arrieta has given up 3 runs in the last month … and two of them were in his road start in Pittsburgh on 9/16/15. I could see a similar start from him again in the Wednesday WC game. So what can the Cubs do with Cole? They have also seen him twice in the last month, got shut down at home but got to him on 9/15/15 in Pittsburgh. Tough one to predict but I’m going with your presumptive Cy Young winner to hold serve in Pittsburgh, sending home the 97 win Pirates for the 2nd straight year in the play-in game. Prediction: Cubs win.

If the Cubs win, they’ll be at a huge disadvantage against the Cards. If the Pirates win, Liriano and Happ have been pitching well enough to get them back to their ace quickly and make a series of it.

AL Divisional Winners

Toronto: Price, Estrada, Buehrle, Dickey/Stroman

Kansas City: Cueto, Ventura, Volquez, Young (Medlen)

Texas: Hamels, Gallardo, Holland, Perez/Lewis

Discussion:

Toronto is setup for the playoffs and will get Price twice. The back-end of their rotation doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in a playoff series, but Toronto isn’t about top-notch pitching. They hope to bash their way to the title and just may do it. Would you roll the dice and sit Dickey for the 4th spot in favor of Stroman and his live arm? Do you insult the veteran Buehrle and leave him off your playoff roster (probably not).

Kansas City: blew Cueto in an attempt to keep home field and were successful, so Ventura likely gets two NLDS starts. Nationals re-tread Young suddenly looks like the #4 starter for a WS contender. Who would have thought that?

Texas burned Hamels just to get to the playoffs; they’ll struggle to compete against two David Price home starts. Who is their #4 in the playoffs? Will Toronto average 6 runs a game against this staff? Could be a short-post season run for the Rangers; no judgement here; they’ve done fantastically just to get into the playoffs given the number of rotation injuries and their poor start.

AL Wild Card

Houston: Keuchel, McHugh, McCullers, Kazmir/Fiers

New York Yankees: Tanaka, Severino, Pineda, Nova (Sabathia)

Discussion/Prediction: well, it doesn’t look good for the Yankees; Keuchel is scheduled to start and has thrown twice against New York this year: he threw a 6-hit shutout with 12 Ks against them in June and then threw 7 innings of 3-hit shutout ball in late August. He’s your shoe-in Cy Young Winner and seems likely to pitch the Astros into the divisional series. New York counters with Tanaka; in his sole appearance vs Houston he got lit up (5ip, 6runs) and the Yankees seem like they’re struggling just to field a lineup at season’s end. They get the home game but likely go out a loser to end their season. And if the Yankees somehow won, they’d have thrown their best pitcher … and one of the presumptive rotation members just checked himself into Alcohol Rehab. Prediction: Astros Win.

Interesting collection of guys with Washington ties featuring prominently in the 2015 playoffs.

Dan Haren was nearly released mid-season because he was so bad in Washington 2 years ago, now he’s the #3 starter on a 97 win team.

Marco Estrada was waived by the Nats after a long and uninspiring minor league career; now he’s the #2 starter for the AL favorite?

Chris Young played a whole season for Syracuse in 2013, working his way back from an injury. When he didn’t make the 2014 roster he signed with Seattle and has been pretty effective since.

Marcus Stroman was an 18th round pick out of HS by the Nats; he was listed as a SS (he’s only 5’8″) but went to Duke, became a power arm and was a 1st round pick by the Blue Jays 3 years later.

Colby Lewis signed on with the Nats back in the bad years, failing to make the team out of Spring Training in 2007. He hooked on with Oakland, playing most of the year in Sacramento before signing a 2-year gig in Japan.

Lets look at those teams that altered their rotations and talk about how much they improved. In order of perceived impact:

1. Los Angeles: added Mat Latos and Alex Wood, replacing two placeholders who had taken over for the injured Brandon McCarthy and Hyun-Jin Ryu. Add Latos and Wood to what the Dodgers were already rolling out and I feel like they have become the new team to beat in the NL.

2. Toronto: adds the best pitcher on the market David Price to a team that really, really needed a bump in their pitching. Price is used to the AL East and gives Toronto (coupled with their big Troy Tulowitzki move) a leg up on their divisional rivals. The rest of the division mostly stood pat in terms of the trade deadline, and the division is there for the taking. I believe Toronto can catch the Yankees; they’ve been incredibly unlucky by RS/RA and should regress upwards.

3. Kansas City: Johnny Cueto immediately replaces the injured Jason Vargas in a “nice timing” move, and KC solidifies its grip on the division. This move wasn’t about getting to the post season as much as it was about winning once they get there. Cueto is their 2015 version of James Shields; the workhorse who they can lean on in the 5- and 7-game series.

4. Houston: added Scott Kazmir and Mike Fiers, who will slide in to the 4th and 5th spots and supplant the under performing Scott Feldman and others who need more time in AAA. While not as flashy as some other teams’ moves, this makes the back of Houston’s rotation stronger. And, it should be noted, Houston’s main AL West rival (Los Angeles) not only didn’t make a move but just lost one its key starters to injury (C.J. Wilson). Houston’s rebuilding plan looks like its at least a year ahead of schedule and coupled with serious injury issues to their competitors look like the favorite in the AL West.

5. Texas: adds Cole Hamels, who Philadelphia *finally* moved after sitting on the pot for 2 years. I think this move is more about 2016; I don’t really see Texas making a move in 2015. But it is a significant move: Hamels could give Texas one of the best AL 1-2 punches when Yu Darvish comes back, and then they have a nice collection of arms to choose from to fill out the rotation (Gallardo, Holland, Perez, Lewis, Martinez).

6. San Franciscoadds the underrated Mike Leake, who slides into the #3 spot, prevents the Giants from even considering using Tim Lincecum in the rotation any longer, and certainly gives them an upgrade over what they were getting from Tim Hudson. SF isn’t *that* far back from LA in the division … but more importantly is working hard to secure a WC spot.

7. Pittsburghmakes a minor move in adding J.A. Happ, who slides nicely and fortuitously into the spot that A.J. Burnett may be giving up to injury.

8. Chicago Cubscuriously added Dan Haren to their rotation; adding a mediocre #5 starter to a team that plays in a hitter’s park may back fire. I would have thought Chicago would have been more aggressive to try to secure the 2nd wild card, but then again is it fair to say their rebuilding plan is also a year ahead of schedule right now? Maybe they go big in the off-season to add starters behind Lester/Arrieta.

Sellers and the Impacts to their rotations:

– Detroitmoved backwards, selling their ace but acquiring a good prospect in Daniel Norris. This move also lets them try out a couple of starter prospects for the rest of a season where they’re clearly not going to catch Kansas City.

– Oaklandwas a seller but didn’t augment their rotation very much, getting a #5 starter in Aaron Brooks. Oakland has been completely snake-bit this season, sporting one of the best run differentials in the game but having lost 75% of the one-run games they’ve played. Billy Beane isn’t afraid to deal though and he’s got more than enough starting pitching coming off injury to compete in 2016.

– Philadelphiagot the rotting corpse of Matt Harrison in return for Hamel, along with a whole slew of players; I doubt Harrison ever pitches for them.

– Cincinnatisold off their two best pitchers and now are doing open auditions at the MLB level for their 2016 rotation.

– Miamifinds themselves in a familiar place, selling off assets so as to line the pockets of their owners needlessly. They lose two rotation guys but augment from the D/L and the farm system. They’ll regroup for 2016 and continue to challenge as the worst organization to their fan base.

– Seattlewas sort of a seller, flipping off back of the rotation guys for spare parts. They did not meaningfully alter their core rotation. Their problem is simply under-performance.

– Atlantacuriously parted with one of the most valuable resources in the game; the effective MLB-minimum starter. They ended up with draft picks and prospects and a Cuban wild card in Hector Olivera.

– Milwaukeeparted with a 5th starter, giving those starts to their #1 prospect Taylor Jungmann. A good deal for them.

Will the Nats be staring down Kershaw in the playoffs? Photo via wiki.

Here we are. After a crazy trade deadline in July, and an August and September that featured the division leaders (in most cases) solidifying their positions and extending their leads, the playoffs are upon us.

Lets take a look at the rotations of the playoff teams (despite the fact that the four Wild Card teams are just one-man pitching staffs until they win the play-in game). Who lines up best? For each team i’ve tried to line the pitchers up one through five, with the 5th guy being the one headed to the bullpen.

Just look at what the Dodgers have tried to do to keep their rotation afloat in terms of player acquisition over the past couple of years. I’d like to have their budget. They will have no less than eleven capable, MLB-experienced starters once they’re all healthy. Yes Kershaw is unbeatable, but as pointed out earlier this year, they are basically a .500 team otherwise. Their 4th and 5th starters have been below replacement for much of the past month but they’re getting back Ryu right in time for the playoffs. St. Louis’ rotation looks just as strong as it has been for the past few years; Wainwright quietly has 20 wins and a 2.38 ERA on the season. Lynn has been great. Only Miller has struggled but still has a league-average ERA+.

It is hard not to look at the Nationals’ rotation and claim they’re the deepest one-through-four, despite Gonzalez’s struggles. I’d take our #4 (Fister) over anyone else’s #4, I think our #3 matches up just as favorably to anyone els’es #3, and Strasburg has a 1.34 ERA in September as the #1.

NL Wild Card:

Pittsburgh: Liriano, Cole, Locke, Volquez, Worley (Morton dinged up late Sept, made way for Cole).

San Francisco: Bumgarner, Hudson, Petit, Vogelsong, Peavy(Lincecum to bullpen for Petit, Cain out all year)

The NL WC pitching match-up will be Bumgarner-Liriano. Both teams manipulated their rotations at season’s end to preserve their aces for the coin-flip game. We’ll do a separate prediction piece.

The Braves fell so far, so badly in September that they were nearly surpassed by the lowly NY Mets for 2nd place in the NL East. That’s crazy. But they still remain here as an also-ran because they were in the wild card race until mid-September. I still think it is crazy what they were able to accomplish given the starting pitcher injuries they suffered in spring training and don’t quite understand why Frank Wren was fired. If you want to fire him for his crummy FA contracts so be it; but the man engineered a team that made the playoffs three of the past five years. Harsh treatment if you ask me. Insider comments seem to think that Wren lost an internal power-struggle involving Fredi Gonzalez.

It is hard to look at these rotations and comprehend where these teams currently stand:

How is Baltimore leading the AL East by 12 games? None of these guys are a league-wide “Ace.”

How is Detroit not pulling away from the AL Central with this collection of arms? Of course, you could ask this question of Detroit over and again the past few years; with a stacked lineup and stacked rotation they have just barely won their (usually) weak division year after year.

How does Los Angeles have the best record in the majors with a non-drafted FA and a waiver claim in their Sept rotation? Would you favor this rotation over Detroit’s?

I guess it doesn’t matter; these teams have bashed their way to their titles and should continue to hit in the post-season. Apparently the O’s aren’t going to go with Gausman in their playoff rotation despite his good seasonal numbers. It may be a case of veteran manager going with the veterans, as Gausman’s numbers are pretty much in line with most of the rest of the Baltimore rotation. The injury to Richards really hurts the Angels: Weaver may be close to an Ace but Wilson showed he is hittable in the post-season and lord knows what will happen when LA has to throw their #3 and #4 choices.

AL Wild Cards:

Kansas City: Shields, Duffy, Ventura, Guthrie, Vargas

Oakland: Grey, Samardzija, Lester, Hammel, Kazmir

AL Wild Card looks like a knock-out match-up of Shields and Lester; the A’s burned Grey yesterday to get the win that put them in the playoffs. Oakland has to be kicking themselves; how did they go from (easily) the best team in the majors for the first half to struggling to hang onto the WC spot? On paper replacing 3/5ths of the rotation (out with Chavez, Milone, Pomeranz and Straily, in with Samardzija, Lester and Hammel) sounded like a great idea … but to me the team’s chemistry was clearly un-balanced. At least they held on to the spot and avoiding a one-game play-in against Felix Hernandez.

AL Also-Rans:

Seattle: Hernandez, Walker, Iwakuma, Paxton, Young (Elias out for year)

New York: McCarthy, Greene, Kuroda, Capuano, Pineda (with Tanakafinally coming back at season’s end. Nova and Sabathia gone all year with injuries).

All Seattle needed to do was *get* to the wild card game … and they’d have great odds of advancing behind ace Hernandez. But struggled to the finish line. Meanwhile Cleveland and New York would have been mentioned here a week ago, but both squads just ran out of time to make comebacks. I’ll give NY credit: they played 7 games better than their pythagorean record with huge chunks of their rotation gone for the season and depending on guys who’s names I had to look up.

Mike Trout is a shoe-in for Rookie of the Year. Will he add AL MVP as well? Photo Gary Vasquez/US Presswire via espn.com

I’ve had a good string of predicting MLB’s major Post season awards in this space. In 2010 I went 8 for 8. In 2011 I again went 8-8 in predicting MLB’s awards, though I missed on predicting the unofficial Sporting News Executive and Comeback Player of the year. I don’t have much confidence in going 8-for-8 this year though; the AL MVP seems way too close to predict, and I have no idea how the Cy Young awards will go.

[Editor Note: I write this in phases over the course of the season, and finalized it in early October. After I wrote this piece some of the awards have already been announced; Sporting News announced Comeback Players of the Year last week. I’ll put up another post talking about my guesses and which awards I got right and wrong in another article once all awards are announced in November.]

Before reading on to my predictions on 2012’s winners, a statement to prevent arguments in the comments section. These are my guesses as to who will WIN the awards, not necessarily who DESERVES them. Invariably there’s a player who plays on a non-playoff or losing team but puts up fantastic numbers (Matt Kemp for the 2011 Dodgers, perhaps Mike Trout this year) who a number of loud pundits say “should” win the MVP. Well, the fact of the matter is that the current voter base absolutely takes into account the circumstances behind a player’s production, and places more value on batters who are in a pennant race. As do I. The MVP isn’t the “Best Overall Batter Award,” which would end a lot of these arguments (since, the Cy Young essentially is exactly the “Best Overall Pitcher Award” and thus is easier to predict); its the “Most Valuable Player” award, and I agree with many who believe that a guy hitting .370 for a last place team isn’t nearly as “valuable” as the guy who hits .320 and leads a team deep into a playoff race. It is what it is; if we want to change it perhaps the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA, whose awards these are) needs to add a category or clarify their requirements.

Secondly, when considering the Cy Young, invariably there’s one pitcher who puts up comparable numbers to another, but one plays in a weaker division so the same Sabr-focused pundits make their holier-than-thou proclamations about how the voter base failed in their picks. And their points are valid. But this is a prediction piece, not an opinion piece, and the fact of the matter is that current voters are still mostly old-school and put value on things like “Wins” and “ERA,” stats that most Sabr-nerds think are useless in evaluating a pitcher.

So keeping those two points in mind, Here’s my predictions for 2012:

AL MVP: Miguel Cabrera. Despite the massive amount of internet baseball material devoted to talking about how great a season Mike Trout has had (mostly looking at his WAR values historically), I still see the voter base placing emphasis on three major points:

Cabrera plays for a playoff team, Trout does not. The fact that the Angels will finish with a better record than the Tigers, or that the Angels clearly played in a harder division? Immaterial to the old-school voter base.

Cabrara won the Triple Crown. And most Triple Crown winners throughout history also won the MVP. The fact that the triple crown is based on 3 relatively flawed statistics? Irrelevant to the narrative of the achievement itself. It remains an incredibly difficult achievement to accomplish in modern baseball’s era of specialized hitters (Ichiro for batting, Adam Dunn for homers) to hit for both average and power in the way that Cabrera consistently does. (Rob Neyerposted thoughts about this topic, quoting random people on the internet with various takes).

Cabrera had a monster finish, Trout did not. Cabrera’s OPS in the run-in months was over 1.000 each of July, August and September. Trout peaked in July but was merely above average in the closing months. Your finish matters (as we’ll see in the NL Rookie of the Year race discussed later on).

Opinions like USA Today’s Bob Nightengale‘s exemplify the bulk of the voter base right now. A few years ago the writers were smart enough to award Felix Hernandez a Cy Young with nearly a .500 record by recognizing more of the advanced metrics in play, but the Cy Young’s definition is a lot more specific than that of the MVP.

This is nothing against Trout; the Angels were 6-14 when he got called up and finished 89-73. That’s an 83-59 record with him, a .584 winning percentage that equates to 95 wins, which would have won the AL West. Trout was the undeniable MVP for me nearly all season. You hate to say it, but when the Angels faltered so did Trout’s MVP candidacy.

The rest of the ballot? Adrian Beltre and Robinson Cano get some typical “best player on best teams” votes. I’d give Josh Reddick some top-5 votes too.

AL Cy Young: David Price, by virtue of his 20 wins and league leading ERA, will squeak out the win over last year’s winnerJustin Verlander. The statistical crowd will point out that Verlander was just as dominant in 2012 as he was in 2011 (when he unanimously won), and that his significantly higher innings total and lead in Pitcher WAR should get him the award. However, as with the AL MVP you have to take into account the voter base. Price won 20 games, that he pitches in a tougher division, that he beat out Verlander for the ERA title. Plus, and I hate to say it, but Price is the “sexy pick,” the guy who hasn’t won before. Verlander is the known guy and sometimes you see voters being excited to vote for the new guy. Its kind of like the Oscars; sometimes an actor wins for a performance that wasn’t the best as a way to “give it to the new guy.” Certainly this contributed to Clayton Kershaw‘s victory in 2011 and we may see similar behaviors again. There might even be an east coast voter bias in play. Jered Weaver,Chris Sale, Jake Peavy, and Felix Hernandez all get some top-5 votes, possibly finishing in that order behind Price and Verlander.

AL Rookie of the Year: Mike Trout, in what should be an unanimous vote. He could (if the MVP vote goes the way many thinks it should) become only the 3rd player ever to win both the MVP and the RoY in the same year (Fred Lynn and Ichiro Suzuki being the others). In the conversation: Yu Darvish (who certainly did not have a BAD year, but drifted mid-season), Yoenis Cespedes (who would win it in most years), Matt Moore (my preseason guess; I’m still shocked he displayed virtually none of the dominance of the 2011 post-season during his 2012 season), Will Middlebrooks (who made Kevin Youklis expendible within just a couple of months of arrival), and amazingly Tommy Milone (who was nearly unhittable in his home stadium and continued his performance from the Nats in the end of 2011). A couple other names in the conversation: Scott Diamond and Jarrod Parker.

AL Mgr: Buck Showalter should get this this award for taking a team that should be a .500 ballclub based on pythagorean record and put them in the playoffs for the first time in a decade. I also think he wins because of east coast bias, since certainly what Bob Melvin and the Oakland A’s pulled off is nothing short of fantastic. Robin Ventura may have gotten some votes had the White Sox held on, but may be the 3rd place finisher.

(Unofficial “award”): AL GM: I almost hate to say it, but Billy Beane. The A’s were supposed to be awful this year, having traded away most of their starting rotation (as explained further in this Aug 2012 post here) and let most of their hitters walk. Instead they acquire a couple of good pieces from Washington, sign the exciting Cespedes to go with a few bottom-barrel FAs, and overcame a 13-game deficit to win the powerhouse AL West. A great story.

(Unofficial “award”): AL Comeback Player of the Year: It has to be Adam Dunn, right? How do you go from the lowest qualifying average in history to career highs in homers and not get votes. Jake Peavy may get some votes after two injury plagued seasons, but he was pretty decent last year and isn’t exactly coming out of nowhere like Ryan Vogelsong did last year.

Now for the National League:

NL MVP: Buster Posey‘s strong finish, combined with his team’s playoff run and his playing catcher gives him the nod over his competition here. For much of the season I thought this award was Andrew McCutchen‘s to lose, but his fade and Pittsburg’s relative collapse from their division-leading mid-season costs him the MVP. The rest of the ballot? Ryan Braun may be putting up MVP-esque numbers but the fall out from his off-season testing snafu will cost him votes (both in this race and for the rest of his career unfortunately). Johnny Molina getting some press too, for many of the same reasons as Posey. Joey Votto probably lost too much time to be really considered, but remains arguably the best hitter in the league.

NL Cy Young: R.A. Dickey was the mid-season choice, was challenged late but his 20th win combined with his fantastic ERA for a knuckleballer makes him the winner. Amazingly, Dickey has pitched most of the season with a torn abdominal muscle, making his season accomplishments even more impressive. Johnny Cueto makes a great case, leading the playoff-contending Reds, but he slightly sputtered down the stretch. Clayton Kershaw quietly had a fantastic year, leading the league in ERA, but as we saw with David Price above, I think the voters like to vote for the new guy. Kershaw got his Cy Young last year; this year is Dickey’s time. Other names in the top-5 mix: Matt Cain, Cole Hamels, Gio Gonzalez and perhaps even Jordan Zimmermann (who got some mid-season attention by virtue of his excellent July). I have a hard time giving the award to a reliever, but the numbers Aroldis Chapman and Craig Kimbrel are putting in as the closers of Cincinnati and Atlanta respectively may be enough to at least appear in the top-5. Lastly, the odd case of Kris Medlen; his WAR puts him in the top 10 despite only having 12 starts. Is this enough to give him some votes? Maybe some 5th place votes here and there. But look out in 2013.

NL Rookie of the Year: Bryce Harper, who won his 2nd rookie of the month in September, finished incredibly strong and took advantage of late-season fades from his two biggest competitors to win this award. The National media buzz on Harper/Trout was never greater than during the season’s last month, and while games in April count the same as in September, the lasting impression is made by he who finishes strongest. Wade Miley has a great case but I think falls short. Cincinnati’s Todd Frazier has had a great season and was beating Harper’s numbers across the board, but he sat once Scott Rolen came back and faded down the stretch. Milwaukee’s Norichika Aoki has had a nice season at age 30, coming over from Japan. I don’t think guys like this (or Darvish, or Ichiro Suzuki for that matter) should qualify as “rookies” but rules are rules. Anthony Rizzo, Wilin Rosario, Matt Carpenter, and Mike Fiers also put up good rookie numbers and may get some 5th place votes.

NL Mgr: Davey Johnson. Nobody had the Nats winning nearly 100 games. Had the Pirates not collapsed perhaps we’d be talking about Clint Hurdle. Don Mattingly had somewhat of a transitionary team playing great early, but the mid-season influx of high-priced talent, and their subsequent collapse costs him any support.

(unofficial award) NL GM: Mike Rizzo, pulling off the Gio Gonzalez trade, signing Jackson in a deal immediately lauded as a great move and quickly putting together a team that looks to be 15-20 games improved over 2011. We thought they’d be in the mid-80s in wins; who thought they could be pressing for 100??

(Unofficial “award”): NL Comeback Player of the Year: Buster Posey. He went from a season-ending injury to an MVP season. In other years Adam LaRoche may get some looks here, but not in the face of what Posey has been doing for San Francisco. Lastly I had Johan Santana on a short list for this award until he was lost for the season in the aftermath of his 134 pitch no-hitter on June 1st. At at point he was 3-2 but with a 2.38 ERA. He finished the season 6-9 with a 4.85 ERA and was shut down on August 17th. Are we sure that no-hitter was worth it?